Middle East ETF Launch: WisdomTree Middle East Dividend Fund (GULF, WSDT)

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Apr 3, 1:17PM EDT · Published Jul 16, 11:53AM EDT

Follow 24/7 Wall St. on Google

This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

We have seen the launch today on the NASDAQ of the WisdomTree Middle East Dividend Fund
(NASDAQ: GULF). WisdomTree (PinkSheets: WSDT) is the manager of the index and the ETF.

The WisdomTree Middle East Dividend Fund is based on the WisdomTree Middle East Dividend Index. This "GULF" ETF provides investors with exposure to approximately 70 dividend paying companies listed in Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

Our other emerging and developing market coverage on Africa and the Middle East is as follows:
Jim Cramer Gives Middle East Infrastructure Picks
Africa ETF Launched: Market Vectors-Africa Index ETF
Africa: The Final Emerging Market Frontier
Big IPO: Safaricom in Kenya

As of today’s information, this ETF has only $2.493 million in assetsat the date of the launch and 100,000 shares outstanding. If the ETFdoes well and liquidity is present, we’d expect that number to rise onboth counts.

The WisdomTree Middle East Dividend Index is a fundamentally weightedindex measuring the performance of companies in the Middle East regionthat pay regular cash dividends on shares of common stock and that meetspecified requirements. Companies eligible for inclusion in the Indexmust be incorporated in and have their shares listed on a major stockexchange in Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Oman, Qatar or theUAE. Shares of component companies must also be eligible to bepurchased by foreign investors. The Index is dividend weighted andupdated every 15 seconds between 9:30 AM EST and 4:00 PM EST to reflectmarket prices and exchange rates. Closing or last-sale prices are usedwhen non-U.S. markets are closed. The current individual countrybreakdown may change through time but is listed as follows:

Kuwait 24.87%
U.A.E. 19.92%
Qatar 15.63%
Egypt 11.93%
Morocco 9.55%
Jordan 6.72%
Oman 6.09%
Bahrain 5.29%

The Index had a base value of 200.0 as of June 30, 2008.

Jon C. Ogg
July 16, 2008

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.